


Into the Breach

by morganya



Category: Ship to Wreck - Florence + the Machine (Song)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Casual Sex, F/M, Self-Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24096460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: A portrait of a woman drowning.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Jukebox 2020





	Into the Breach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Highsmith (quimtessence)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/gifts).



She slid out of the college boy's bed, picked her clothes off the floor and got dressed in his bathroom. She stole two of his Tylenol and washed them down with tap water before heading out, leaving a goodbye post-it by his coffee machine.

It was just past dawn, and she walked home to her apartment on the boardwalk. The beach was still closed down; there had been some shark sightings earlier. Idly she imagined them swimming by the shoreline, bodies moving silently in the dark, constantly moving forward with no fixed destination.

Back at her apartment, she considered taking a sleeping pill but ultimately didn't want to risk the dreams. She turned the shower on and undressed as the bathroom filled with steam. She caught a look at herself in the mirror – a blurry, soft-focus reflection through the clouds. It erased any evidence of age or dissipation. She stepped into the shower and reached for the soap.

It wasn't worth the effort of trying to go to sleep afterwards so she poured a glass of wine and settled on the sofa, looking out the window at the dull gray sky.

*****

She exchanged some flirty texts with the college boy over the next week, and it was diverting enough, but, as usual, she wound up going back to the Cormorant. It was close to the apartment and the beer was cold.

After a few rounds and some small talk, the man sitting next to her at the bar put his hand on her leg. She looked over to get a better appraisal. He couldn't have been more than ten years younger than she was, preppy chinos, eyes blurry from the drinks. He faltered slightly under her gaze but he didn't move his hand.

She let him lead her outside to the back of the building. The air smelled of salt and she could hear the buoy bells in the distance. He backed her against the wall and shoved her panties to one side. It took him a few tries to get his cock in. He could have tried his fingers first, she thought, looking over his shoulder towards the horizon. She wondered how many ships were out tonight, fishing boats and yachts and rowboats. At school she'd read about shipwrecks, caused by accident or else destroyed by conflict.

It took a long time for him to finish; too much booze, she figured. She brushed off his attempt to get her number and left, taking the long way home.

*****

She came back to the Cormorant on a Thursday. It was past happy hour.

The TV above the bar was playing something that looked like a science show. A man in a white coat moved along rows and rows of cages where tiny white mice scrabbled, trying to climb the walls. Their tiny red eyes looked panicked.

Shannon the bartender came over to refill her glass. She put some money on the bar and watched as Shannon rinsed out the cocktail shakers. "You don't usually work at this time, right?"

"Picking up some extra shifts," Shannon said. "The kids want to go to camp this summer. I didn't know how expensive it would be to get them in. When I was a kid I spent the summers kicking rocks."

"Kids always need something," she agreed.

"I really hope I can swing it," Shannon said. "I mean, if I could have one summer without them driving me up the wall, I'd be happy." She considered a minute. "Well, they're pretty good kids, really. They don't ask for much. Do you have kids?"

She looked at the TV as she thought about how to answer. The man in the white coat had opened one of the cages and was holding a mouse in his fist. The mouse was thrashing its head back and forth frantically.

Finally she picked up her glass. "I did," she said and swigged the whiskey down. "Not anymore, though."

Shannon looked like she wanted to ask a question, but something in her eyes must have stopped her, because she took the glass away and fixed another drink without being asked. "Let me know if you need anything else," she said and started wiping down the bar.

She was glad that the bar started filling up a few minutes later. It was easy to lose herself in the crowd.

*****

The nights she dreaded most were the ones where she was alone and there were no pills or drinks or men that could quiet the noise inside her head. Sometimes she could make herself stay still until the morning when she could start keeping busy again, but usually the roar inside her got to be too much and she would have to get out.

She walked through the streets with her ID in her pocket. Late at night, the only sounds were the buoy bells and her shoes clicking on the street. She went through alleys and side streets blindly, startling the rats, not sure what she was looking for and still hoping that the riot inside her brain would silence if she found it.

When it was nearly dawn and her legs were sore, she staggered down to the beach by following the sound of the bells and the surf. She knelt in the sand with the waves splashing over her, soaked to the bone and too exhausted to care. There was some measure of quiet then, finally. It would take a while but she would manage to rise and start back towards the apartment to begin getting ready for work.

*****

She met a woman on the street when she was on her way to the Cormorant. The woman had strange, impossibly dark eyes and silver on her wrist. She wouldn't have given her a second look except she was going in as the same time the woman was going out and the woman grabbed her arm, startling her.

The woman said, "It must have been too cold for him, his heart gave way." She tightened her fingers around her arm. "It was too cold always."

She pulled her arm free. "Things will look better in the morning," she said to the woman. Then she moved on, disappearing into the familiar darkness of the bar.

**Author's Note:**

> The woman quotes loosely from Stevie Smith's Not Waving but Drowning.


End file.
